5 Ways Breweries, Distilleries, and Wineries Outsmarted Prohibition

Next time you’re out drinking with friends, propose a trivia question to them: How many years long was Prohibition?

A couple years, most of them will guess. Someone might even be bold and say five or so. The real answer? Over 13.

Unbelievably, from January 17th, 1920 until December 5th, 1933, the production, sale, and transport of alcohol was banned in the U.S. of A., though actual drinking never was. Still, this was obviously debilitating for many of our country’s breweries, distilleries, and wineries. In fact, pre-Prohibition, America counted some 2,000 distilleries, over 4,000 breweries, and a wine industry finally beginning to blossom. A few years after Prohibition was repealed, there were only a few producers of each left in the entire land. It would take our modern “craft” revival of the past decade or two for the ranks to once again get boosted to more lofty numbers (we’re back to around 1,000 distilleries and 5,000 breweries).

Still, how often have you seen an old brewery or distillery claim they’ve been around since eighteen-hundred-whatever, producing their product before Prohibition—and still producing it afterward? What exactly were they doing for those thirteen years in between?

Some were sitting on the asses, or even forced to disband. Others were making cereals, soft drinks, and ice cream. But you might be surprised to know, many were also producing alcohol (or alcohol-ish products). Amazingly, these were done in mostly above-board ways—think DIY kits—with business exploiting loopholes that, while legal, went against the spirit of the ban. As you can imagine, very few customers were complaining.

Here is a look at a few ways breweries, distilleries and wineries—some you might still know of today—outsmarted the Volstead Act and Prohibition to keep America tipsy.

Medicinal Whiskey

Image via Flickr/Terry Lavigne

Outsmarted the system: By turning whiskey into a doctor-dispensed pharmaceutical

Nowadays, you can legally smoke weed so long as Dr. Feelgood gives you a prescription. Believe it or not, the same was true for whiskey during Prohibition. Six whiskey producers were licensed by the government to bottle “medicinal” whiskey—essentially their regular whiskey just in special pint bottles with a big ol’ dosage cap atop it (seriously). “Sick” people were allowed one pint of 100-proof whiskey every ten days, their $3 prescription affixed to the back of their bottle. And what might get you a prescription back then? Well, pretty much anything that would have you reaching for a bottle today—tough times at work, your favorite sports team losing, domestic partner is driving you nuts, general ennui, etc. (There were actually 27 “ailments” to choose from.)

Near Beer

Image via Flickr/Roger W

Outsmarted the system: By making so-called non-alcoholic beer with just a hint of alcohol in it

Utilized by: Yuengling, Anheuser-Busch

For whatever reason, Prohibition only restricted intoxicants above 0.5% ABV. Now while it would be impossible to make a liquor or even wine at such a mild degree (it would be called grape juice), beer could be produced so meagerly. Even today, most “non-alcoholic” beer is around 0.5% ABV. Though “near” beers had long existed in Europe, it took Prohibition for them to appear in America (President Woodrow Wilson had even proposed allowing it to go as high as 2.75% ABV, though that never passed). Long-run breweries like Yuengling, open since 1829, took advantage of this loophole, offering their malty tonics to consumers who must have needed to drink a few cases just to catch a buzz. Admittedly, beer sales went down during this time, but by 1933 when the Volstead Act was repealed, it was quite easy to “flip the switch” back to full-alcohol beer. Indeed, Yuengling was able to ship FDR a truck-full of their new “Winner” lager on literally the day the 21st Amendment was ratified.

Malt Extract

Image via Vienna Art Plates

Outsmarted the system: By giving consumers unfermented beer

Utilized by: Anheuser-Busch, Pabst, Miller, Schlitz

Despite its association with booze, Prohibition really affected our country’s eating habits too. Why else would cans of barley malt extract (or malt syrup) all of the sudden become such a popular ingredient to throw in the shopping cart? Although it could be, in theory, used to make breads and cakes, the real answer is people were combining the hopped malt extract with some water, sugar, and yeast (also sold by certain breweries) in order to easily homebrew their own beer. The federal authorities weren’t blind to these shenanigans, and even instituted a few raids of the product, but they really had no case. As a Michigan supreme court justice noted: “Malt syrup is a food. It is not intoxicating...If the prosecution is right here then it is unlawful to sell any substance which may be used in making intoxicating liquor, such as sugar, cornmeal, raisins, grains, etc.”

Sacramental wine

Image via Getty/Underwood Archives

Outsmarted the system: By making intoxication a part of protected religious beliefs

Since Prohibition was mostly an act of religious animosity toward drinkers, it’s perhaps no surprise that hypocritical Christian legislators still allowed wine “for religious purposes” to be produced. Within two years, a whopping 800,000 gallons of wine was now being earmarked for churches, most of it of the very sweet, fortified variety. But it wasn’t just Christians. Kosher wine companies sprung up overnight, and all of the sudden there were a whole lot more “rabbis” in this world, all legally allowed to distribute to the “congregation” (of note, many early whiskeymen were also Jewish). Jews were allowed ten gallons per year per family, more than enough to make for some very good Shabboses. Of course, many bootleggers secretly made deals with churches and synagogues. Still, Prohibition decimated the nascent California wine industry, with only a dozen producers still standing by 1933.

Grape Bricks

Those vineyards who didn’t want to get into the God business had to find another use for their pricey grapes, which are often not the easiest fruit to grow well. Analogous to breweries and their “extracts,” wineries came up with the brilliant plan to start selling fermentable grape jelly and grape bricks. The latter was dehydrated grapes in a box that a consumer could dissolve in water and then, let’s just say, forget about in their closet for several weeks so it could start magically fermenting. Of course, according to law, the wineries had to not only discourage this, but completely forbid it! Thus, these grape bricks came with intense warnings on the box to absolutely, positively, not allow the grapes to become alcohol by doing the following steps (which were also often printed on the box). Eventually, the law allowed for families to ferment 200 gallons of grapes per year, strictly for “home use,” and, amazingly, American wine consumption actually doubled during Prohibition. Take that, Carrie Nation!

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